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Cédrix Crespel: D I S T A N C E
September 30th – October 30th, 2023
San Diego, California- Madison Gallery announces D I S T A N C E, French artist Cédrix Crespel’s first solo US exhibition. A stunning and ethereal representation of love in landscapes, of love in our surroundings, of love outside the physical beings. The use of bold, yet soft, colors, Crespel captures the desire and vulnerability of passion from afar. The feeling of endless depth, of dynamic distance, of eternal love and longing.
“To face it, to get lost in it and to surrender to it. The landscape, with its magnificence, its ‘immensity,’ and its indifference, imposes its might and its power dynamics. The one who gazes upon it experiences a form of solitude, vulnerability, and inaccessibility: a state that, in many ways, resembles love. Painting the vaporization of love, the vibration that lack can generate, the projection of feelings. Painting emotions far beyond what can be seen. When we are both separated, our landscapes clash and represent the distance between us. From her to me, and vice versa. A form of landscape in love; showing what cannot normally be represented.” Cédrix Crespel
Cédrix Crespel’s paintings are a true reflection of his life, a man whose notions of love and sensuality have been constantly questioned and deconstructed. By exploring different representations of femininity, the artist creates a deep connection between his own existence and his art.
In his canvases, swirls, vapors, and veils of the visible conceal a secret figuration. It is through subtle details and palpable sensuality that Cédrix Crespel stages his wife Tiphaine, an undeniable presence since the beginning. His love and desire prefer to express themselves in intimacy and modesty. Thus, the artist freezes in his paintings the materiality of flesh and the vivid emotion that accompanies it, creating a dialogue of silence and subtleties.
Since 2016, Cédrix Crespel has focused his work on the notion of “correspondence” and the creation of a “new Entity” generated by the couple in art. He thus offers a contemporary and introspective vision of the relationship between art and life, inviting the viewer to get lost in the layers of meaning and emotion in his work.
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Radenko Milak : Angel of History
November 4th – January 4th, 2023
Solana Beach, California – Madison gallery presents Bosnian artist Radenko Milak (* 1980) who combines the photographic image with the painterly narrative. Like a chronicler of the present, he addresses major contemporary issues and identifies historical connections. Milak’s paintings are always based on photos. In his paintings and animated films – mostly watercolors with black pigment – RADENKO MILAK analyses the role of contemporary image production in the formation of our historical and cultural memory. The Bosnian artist’s painting work centers on questions relating to how visual elements are fixed and stored – both in personal memories and as presented in the media of film and photography.
“For his first solo exhibition in California, at Madison Gallery, Radenko Milak presents a corpus of works created during and after the years of stupor. These were the years of a pandemic that had frozen and suspended social time. In 2023, everything seems to have returned to normal. The world has returned to the rhythm of conflicts and extreme climatic changes. We have not yet taken full measure of the impact the pandemic had on our lives. Radenko Milak’s works chronicle contemporary living conditions. He examines the disintegration of relationships in the megacities. He reveals the chiaroscuro of parallel solitudes. He reveals a historical truth that is, for the moment, beyond words. These silhouettes, cutting through architectures that look unreal, are shadows or ghosts. Their precariousness heralds their disappearance in silence. Radenko Milak provokes a subtle sense of anxiety. It awakens emotions, a sensibility to the world and to others, which we know that it is necessary, if we want live fully. The artist captures the soul of the times, its historical dimension. He turns the accidental into a coherent vision.
If Radenko Milak defines himself as an artist of the digital age, we should immediately add that his aesthetic language does not belong to the digital age. His sources and subject matter are based on a careful exploration of the immediate, constant and dematerialized mass flow of images through digital networks. His works are the expression of a deeply singular vision that gives flesh, a body, to disincarnated images. His work is not only from a painter who has developed a virtuoso and inimitable watercolor technique, with an economy of means, through an alchemical combination of black pigment, water and white paper, it is from an observer, a chronicler, who reveals the real that escapes us in our passive relationship to the digital flow.
The situations captured by Radenko Milak inspire an emotion that is of a nature to awaken us to our own existence. A work of art is a material and concrete relationship to the world, because it develops a sensitive grammar. If we take a closer look at Radenko Milak’s works, we are no longer shadows and silhouettes, but alive. Between social and intimate time, the narrative power of these works creates, where we only perceived fragmented events, a single narrative, a common destiny. It could be that Radenko Milak is the Angel of History described by Walter Benjamin : “Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed.” – Christopher Yggdre
Radenko Milak, born in 1980 in Travnik, former Yugoslavia, is currently based in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He holds a degree from the Academy of Art, University of Banja Luka (2003), and the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Art Belgrade (2007). In recognition of his talent, Milak was honored with the Premio Combat Prize for Drawing in Italy in 2012. His artwork has gained recognition through participation in prestigious international art events. Notably, he represented Bosnia and Herzegovina at the 57th Venice Biennale. His participation also extended to the Kampala Biennale in Uganda and the 57th edition of the October Salon in Belgrade. Milak’s artistic contributions can be found in esteemed public collections, including the Folkwang Museum in Germany, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, and The Ludwig Museum in Budapest.
Christopher Yggdre, a prominent curator, redefines art curation by blending modern innovation with traditional values. He fearlessly curates exhibitions that ignite discussions on cultural and social themes, collaborating with figures like philosopher Edouard Glissant. Co-founder of “Les Périphériques vous parlent” and part of Generation Chaos, Yggdre bridges art, humanities, and socio-environmental issues. Yggdre is the Artistic Director at the French Foundation LAccolade and curator at THE ELEMENTAL in Palm Springs. Noteworthy projects include the 2017 Venice Biennale’s “University of Disaster,” Paris exhibitions like “Life Entangled,” and upcoming works like “Symbiosium – Speculative Cosmogonies.”

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Sean Shanahan
January 27th – March 2nd, 2024

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Hunt Slonem
May 24th – July 1st, 2024

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Group Summer Exhibition
July 20th – August 31st, 2024

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Donald Martiny
September 14th – October 26th, 2024

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Santiago Parra
November 16th – January, 2025
Past

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You Should Be Here : Summer Group Show
July 22nd – September 15th, 2023
San Diego, California- Madison Gallery announces You Should Be Here, a group exhibition that delves into the visual exploration of abstract form in movement and materials. The showcase features four artists who examine the ways in which shapes and physical configurations occupy space, focusing on two distinct categories of abstract forms: Organic and Geometric.
Santiago Parra, a celebrated Colombian painter, is widely recognized for his striking black-and-white artworks that evoke expansiveness and raw emotion. He ventures into the realm of organic forms by integrating marble dust, allowing him to explore the depths of darkness and the myriad shades it holds. Parra’s artistic journey involves the creation of a single brushstroke that emerges from the depths of his subconscious. This technique is rooted in automatism, where the artwork springs forth from the unconscious mind. The forms that Parra creates are explosive and boundless, brimming with complexity that invites viewers to unravel the countless possibilities concealed within them.
Max Frintrop, from Germany, utilizes ink as a medium for his artistic expressions. With a unique blowing technique, he disperses pigment across the canvas, engaging in a collaborative process with the medium itself. For Frintrop, painting transcends mere creation; it becomes a channel for contemplation, an extension of his conscious self. The outcome manifests as a collection of delicate organic shapes that bleed and intertwine, capturing intricate thoughts and emotions on the canvas. Through this artistic process, Frintrop delves into the interplay between arrangement and spaces, unraveling the complexities of their relationships.
Elliott Routledge, hailing from Australia and known by the pseudonym “FUNSKULL,” skillfully combines organic and geometric elements, resulting in captivating, free-flowing shapes. Routledge’s work exists in a delicate equilibrium between expressive mark-making, abstract form, and often incorporates word-based art. His implementation of color theory and compositions seamlessly integrates subtle geometric hints through repetition and symmetry.
On the other hand, Lori Cozen-Geller from the United States, employs deliberately geometric and intentional forms in her artwork. Marked by meticulous precision, Cozen-Geller’s pieces feature rigid structures enveloped in a high gloss, mirror-like finish that accentuates their surface luster. This contrast between structure and surface challenges viewers’ perception of the object, prompting a reevaluation of what is seen and how it is comprehended, as aptly noted by art critic Peter Frank.
The exhibition “You Should Be Here” at Madison Gallery offers a captivating exploration of abstract form through the juxtaposition of organic and geometric shapes. By examining the works of Santiago Parra, Max Frintrop, Elliott Routledge, and Lori Cozen-Geller, viewers are immersed in a diverse range of artistic approaches that exemplify the expressive potential and aesthetic allure of organic and geometric forms within the realm of contemporary art.

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Donald Martiny: Urpflanze
May 6th – July 6th, 2023
San Diego, California – Madison Gallery is excited to present Donald Martiny’s latest exhibition, “Urpflanze“, following his successful debut at the 59th Venice Biennale. Martiny delves into the emotionally charged themes of blue during the Romanticism era, where the blue flower represented desire, love, and the metaphysical striving for the infinite and unreachable. “Urpflanze” translates to ‘original plant’ in Italian, which refers to Martiny’s interpretation of the blue flower.
Martiny’s work explores the movement and progression of a sculptural brushstroke and abstract gesture, and his study of blues expands on these artistic ideas. He uses his artistic experience and masterful movements to represent this elusive blue flower in spontaneous ways, harmoniously working with the many tones and depths of blue. H.H. Boyesen described Martiny’s interpretation of blue as “the deep and sacred longings of a poet’s soul”.
“Donald Martiny’s work forces us to question the established definitions which form the backbone of our understanding of painting as both a pursuit and a product and of paint as a medium. In challenging the viewer in these ways, it is not only visually exciting but intellectually invigorating.” -Professor Deborah Swallow, Märit Rausing Director, The Courtauld Institute of Art
Donald Martiny, born in Schenectady, NY in 1953, currently resides in Connecticut and is represented by galleries in Europe, the US, and Australia, with his artwork collected internationally. His recent solo exhibitions include the Paul Taylor Dance Company at the Lincoln Center, NY, and Personal Structures Reflections at the 2022 59th Venice Biennale.
“The art of Donald Martiny exists somewhere between painting and sculpture. We are confronted with a singular brushstroke, huge, a seemingly spontaneous, lavish eruption of color and texture on the wall. It is the mark distilled from painting, the formerly minute detail writ large, what we usually discover as a hidden and obscured part of the whole is made to be the whole itself, the entire work a gesture on the wall.” -Donovan Irven, White Hot Magazine
Madison Gallery was founded by Lorna York in 2001. The program focuses on internationally recognized, museum-level artists whose work contributes to domestic and international cultural dialogue. The gallery presents significant Latin artists and brings international artists to San Diego for the first time. The core gallery program focuses on young and emerging artists, but the gallery also punctuates the program with historical exhibitions to provide depth and context.
Artists represented by Madison Gallery receive critical attention and are widely exhibited. Many of the gallery’s primary artists, originally shown with Madison Gallery, are now being shown internationally and by established galleries in other cities, proving that the gallery has become a springboard for young talent.
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William LaChance: TIMESHARE
March 25th – June 3rd, 2023
Madison Gallery is pleased to announce William LaChance: TIMESHARE. In this, the artist’s second solo project with Madison Gallery, LaChance embraces the collision of unlike parts to create hybrid experiences and kaleidoscopic color spectrums.
As the title suggests, TIMESHARE expands on the theme of painting’s ability to provide a form of escapism for the artist and viewer alike. The paintings imply but do not comply with traditional motifs of landscape, figuration and pure abstraction- instead they are reimagined and cobbled together using colors and forms more akin to advertising, souvenirs, decorative murals, t-shirt shops and arcades, the visual language of travel. In deploying these vernacular signals, these works present a kind of reverse approach to painting that one could fittingly associate with pop art, but with the formal traits of light and space they simultaneously participate in a formal, classical dialogue.
William LaChance (b. 1971, St Louis, Missouri) lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated with a BFA from The Kansas City Art Institute and MFA from Indiana University. LaChance’s pictures are associations of displaced forms and colors cribbed from graphic design, fashion, art history and nature itself cobbled together using a variety of methods and materials from painting and printmaking to assemblage and sewing. The paintings themselves have shifting hierarchies of similar concerns: of material exploration, abstract identity, formal space and narrative expression. They openly blur the boundary between high art and applied arts not only in principle but in practice- lending themselves to various manner of surface design, from textiles and branding to fully realized earthworks. LaChance’s recent mural adorning the Kinloch Park basketball courts was named the best designed basketball court in the world by Architectural Digest. Since 2015, LaChance has exhibited in London, Paris, New York, Athens, Miami, San Diego, Amsterdam and Tokyo. His works have been collected extensively in private and public collections worldwide, including NIKE, Pernod Ricard, Warby Parker, The U.S. Federal Reserve, Hobbes London, Milla Jovovich, Sergio Marchionne / Ferrari and NBC. He has received press both online and in print, including Artsy, Juxtapoz, Forbes, Vogue, L’Officiel, Surface, Dezeen, Architectural Digest and Le Mille.

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Aldo Chaparro : That elusive sentiment
January 28th – March 18 2023
San Diego, December 8, 2022 – Madison Gallery is pleased to welcome Aldo Chaparro to San Diego for his solo exhibition: That elusive sentiment. This marks Chaparro’s first project and collaboration with Madison Gallery. The artist will be in attendance the evening of January 28, 2023 in celebration of the opening.
Aldo Chaparro is a Mexican artist born in 1965 who divides his time between Mexico City, Monterrey Lima, Madrid, Paris, and Southern California. He distributes his time among them, seeking to generate a more intimate and deep connection with the cities where he develops his projects.
Chaparro’s work is based on the interactions between materials and disciplines, from curatorship, film, public art, architecture, industrial and editorial design, to music, sculpture, painting and installation.
This tendency to jump from one language to another has generated in him a constant concern about the processes in art and the connection that these disciplines have with broader areas of society. In this way, his work has become a testimony of various processes, discarding in some way the idea that the value of the work is in the resulting object and its strict relationship with the art world.
Chaparro is best known for his use of sculpture and painting to explore form in post-industrial ways. The most obvious is the concept of sumi-e in Zen, or the aesthetic in which simplicity and the idea of maximum effect is created with minimum means. For Chaparros work, this simplicity of mediums is used to explore purity and the eternal nature of his subjects. U
Aldo Chaparro’s work is included in the collections of the The Jumex Foundation/Mexico, The Coppel Collection/Mexico, The CIFO – Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation/Miami, FL/The Helga de Alvear Foundation, Spain/ Pontificia Universidad Católica de Lima/ Peru, Simon de Pury/ UK, The Douglas Baxter Collection/New York, Pierre Huber Collection/Switzerland and the Jorge Perez Museum Collection/Miami, FL.
Madison Gallery was founded by Lorna York in 2001. The program focuses on internationally recognized, museum-level artists whose work contributes to domestic and international cultural dialogue. The gallery presents significant Latin artists and brings international artists to San Diego for the first time. The core gallery program focuses on young and emerging artists, but the gallery also punctuates the program with historical exhibitions to provide depth and context. Artists represented by Madison Gallery receive critical attention and are widely exhibited. Many of the gallery’s primary artists, originally shown with Madison Gallery, are now being shown internationally and by established galleries in other cities, proving that the gallery has become a springboard for young talent

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Anne-Sophie Ogaard: Perception of Light
October 22nd – December 17th, 2022
Solana Beach, California – Madison Gallery announces Anne-Sophie Øgaard’s PERCEPTION OF LIGHT the artist’s inaugural solo exhibition with Madison Gallery. Born in Norway in 1971, Anne-Sophie Øgaard’s work addresses the boundaries between sculpture and painting. Her pieces explore the possibilities that emerge where painting ends and sculpture begins. Sculpture holds the possibility of magic; things can appear or disappear depending on where you stand in relation to the work. Paintings do not function like this; regardless of the viewer’s position, the painting will always look essentially the same. This relationship is a source of inquiry in how her paintings are conceived, perceived, and received by the audience as well as the context of the artwork in relation to space. Where light, form, and color become a subject matter not only for how light functions, but the light itself.
“In my mind I explore the relationship between light and space. Light enables vision in a meaningful connection with the world through the fact that people respond to the space based on the way the light exposes it to them. In my process I strategically use the perception of light. intuitively light becomes a medium, creating the illusion of perspective and depth in my work. People’s perception and response to the space will be manipulated as the light changes in that space, and the impression of my work will change as well. Forcing the viewer’s movement and active participation in time and space.” – Anne-Sophie Øgaard
“Even though my work has dimensional qualities like in a sculpture, I don’t approach them as a sculpture. Even though I am using untraditional mediums like sand, cement and plaster, I still consider my work as a painting, and myself as a painter.” – Anne-Sophie Øgaard

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59th Venice Biennale: Personal Structures
April 18th – November 27th, 2022
Personal Structures
Venice Biennial Art Exhibition 2022
Madison Gallery will be exhibiting Donald Martiny at the 59th Venice Biennale, April 23 through November 2022 in partnership with the ECC European Cultural Centre at the Palazzo Bembo.
Art and spirituality have always been intimately connected, not only in the way they address the nature of our existence, but also because of their ability to register deep within us. Together they viscerally connect us to an inner feeling, spirit, or vital essence. This work by Donald Martiny strives for what Kandinsky described as the “vibration of the human soul.”
The painting titled Moment, is by far the most ambitious work Martiny has made to date. The painting is made of multiple elements, its creation demanding over one hundred liters of paint to produce. Working on the floor, the artist moves physically inside, around, and through the varied components of his compositions within the paint, pushing the viscus color across surfaces with his hands, arms, and body. The work is figurative in the sense that dynamic gestures relate to the human form in landscape. Shaped paintings have typically been made through an additive process, by applying paint to predetermined shapes. Martiny’s work challenges that notion. His gestures and completed compositions gain their power through a hybrid subtractive process that determines the final profile of the work. From a formal perspective, his process forces us to question established definitions which define our fundamental understanding of painting.
This installation is possible thanks to the efforts of curator Lorna York and Madison Gallery.
Donald Martiny, born in Schenectady, NY, 1953, currently lives and works in Ivoryton, CT. Studies include School of Visual Arts, The Art Students League of New York, New York University, and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Martiny’s work can be found in the permanent collections of One World Trade Center, NY; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX; Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University, New Orleans, LA; FWMoA, Fort Wayne, IN; Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV; Lamborghini Museum, Bologna, Italy; Los Angeles International Airport (LAX); Frost Bank Tower, Fort Worth, TX; Duke University Hospital, Durham, NC. His work also numbers among several prestigious private collections including the Grahm Gund Family Foundation, Cambridge, MA.
Martiny’s work has been featured by Huffington Post, NPR, Philadelphia Inquirer, Architectural Digest Magazine, New American Paintings, Decor Magazine, Hong Kong Tatler, Woven Tale Press, Vogue Living Australia, and Whitehot Magazine.
ECC Publication regarding Personal Structures
Madison Gallery
• Could you tell us more about the importance as a gallery to participating in Personal Structures – Reflections in Venice?
The opportunity to exhibit in Venice during the 59 th Venice Biennale was very important to us as the world came out of a global pandemic. It was a time to celebrate and really view and see the works that many artists had created during this time. Personal Structures at Palazzo Bembo was a beautiful location along the grand canal with its history and very Venetian grand rooms to display Donald’s work.
• You’ve been working with Donald Martiny for several years now, why was it important to present his work in Venice?
The significance of Donalds gestures and abstraction leaving the boundaries of most art as we know it that requires the boundaries of canvas and stretcher bars. Venice is a place to show innovative artists like Donald to 80,000 viewers. It’s important to us as his gallery that represents him to give him such a large scale platform and international audience.
• Donald Martiny’s installation at Palazzo Bembo is one of his biggest projects to date, could you explain to us the challenges as well as satisfactions as a gallery to present such work?
Donald is known for his large scale installation works. He has two large scale works in One World Trade Center NYC and countless private corporate and personal collections. Donald was not able to make this work on site so the work from his US studio had to be shipped, boated and re- assembled on the second floor of Palazzo Bembo did create challenges.
Donald Martiny
• Your work in Personal Structures – Reflections strives for what Kandinsky described as the “vibration of the human soul”, could you expand on that?
In my mind what Wassily Kandinsky was talking about when he made that statement was that art comes from deep within us. Children begin to learn to speak and write with simple names of things, e.g., tree, dog, ball. As we mature and become more sophisticated adults we learn to talk about abstract ideas, complex, and subtle feelings. Kandinsky wanted to go further than depicting the image of an object. He needed abstraction to explore visual ways to express, beyond the limits of verbal communication, the vibrations of our soul.
• How important is the gesture in your practice? Could you tell us more about the technical process behind your artworks?
I believe it was the Leipzig artist Hans Hartung who, if not the first was one of the first, to isolate and explored the gesture and mark-making as a complete statement. Mark-making is movement and motion; movement is life. My artworks are made in a way that I can freely make a bold gesture with paint and the gesture defines the form of the artwork. Perhaps a bold analogy would be how poetry was constructed before Walt Whitman, using formal verse with a strict meter and rhyme. Whitman decided to break free of the constrictions of formal verse and used free verse. With my artworks, I decided to move away from the restrictions of predetermined forms, e.g., rectangles, circles, etc., and want the work itself to define the form.
• The installation at Palazzo Bembo is one of your biggest projects to date, could you explain how you came up with the idea?
When I created MOMENT for Palazzo Bembo I was thinking about how to invite the visitor into the work, to immerse the viewer to help them become involved in an active way rather than a passive way with the work. A few references from art history occurred to me. The 13th century Master of Naumburg, placed the crucefix on the floor among the congregation forcing them to confront the crucefixion from the point of view of the Romans who placed Christ on the cross; Tintoretto’s MirMiracle of the slave, in which St. Mark flies above viewers of the painting, involving “us” into the scene; and Caspar David Friedrich’s marvelous painting Monk by the Sea, with his use of the Rückenfigur.
• How does your work relate to the concept of reflections?
Perhaps I already answered that. It is important for me to strive to be inventive and innovative with my work while maintaining a strong connection and dialogue with meaningful art of the past. I see art as an ongoing conversation. To keep it interesting, one must bring new ideas and challenges, but at the same time, we need to remain coherent.